


There and...

by NavyGreen



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Canonical Character Death, Hurt Bilbo Baggins, Implied Relationships, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-17
Updated: 2020-03-17
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:09:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23180719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NavyGreen/pseuds/NavyGreen
Summary: Bilbo remembers the past, experiences the present, and wonders about the future.
Relationships: Bilbo Baggins/Thorin Oakenshield
Comments: 3
Kudos: 15





	There and...

Bilbo fondly remembered the sounds of the Shire. Flutes, the sloshing of ale, and the whispers of wind in the grass. Childish shouts over the hills, feet against tabletops. Cheer and uproar.

He remembered the lights – the flicking hearths of homes, glimmering through windows and shedding upon the front lawn. The chandelier in his front hallway, the candle on his writing desk.

The Shire lived in an orange glow in those moments. Papers, leaves, bricks – all blessed in a warm radiance. Warm and safe and comfortable.

The journey – for Bilbo no longer considered it an Adventure – towards the Mountain was much the same. Bofur’s flute, Kili and Fili’s fiddles – both filling the night air with tones and tunes. And, sometimes, when moral was lowest and eyes downcast the furthest, Thorin would bring out his harp.

Golden, decorated, with reliefs and patterns of all sorts – Thorin would pluck at its strings with a finesse Bilbo didn’t think Dwarf could possess. The Company would sit around him, then, with cuts and bruises and a hole in need for music.

Bilbo thought even the stars listened; brightening with interest and curving over the dark sky. The notes – unfamiliar but aching of home – swayed on his head, bouncing and stepping; dancing, he thought. A sad waltz.

Hobbits didn’t waltz. They did the jig and stomped their feet and spun around each other, yes. But never waltz. It was too formal, too sad. Dancing was for weddings and births, for birthdays and the everyday. Why dance at all if it wasn’t for enjoyment?

The Lonely Mountain’s lights were cold, distant and blue against the grey rock. Colonnades and walkways sunk deep into a grey-blue haze. The gold did not glitter. Someone played the harp – not Thorin- not Thorin- and its melancholy tune waltzed along the floors and walls and high, vaulted ceilings of the Mountain. It echoed, like a memory.

And the Dwarves danced. They crossed their forearms and stepped around each other. They seemed to float on the stone. Their eyes were sad, but movements strong. Perfectly performed and perfectly remembered. Their amour – because of course Dwarf would insist upon amour at a funeral – flickered mutely under the torches, shone never quiet as brightly as Bilbo remembered.

Bilbo’s dark revere was stolen when the harp player – _his _sister, Balin had told him – began another tune. It struck the Hobbit like an arrow, seared through his chest like a hot iron and strangled him.__

____

His tune.

__

Bilbo retreated from the wake. No-one stopped him – be didn’t think anyone saw him, either. What were mourning Dwarves to an angry Dragon?

__

He found himself slipping out of the chamber, sliding past falling pieces of columns and ceiling, jumping over cracks. The light of the torches faded, though they seemed to claw at his heels, begging him to return.

__

Bilbo disappeared into the darkness, and it was only through memory that he reappeared under the starlight at the secret passage into the Mountain.

__

The stone fell away only a few steps ahead of him, falling and merging into harsh angles and jutting rocks. He blinked away the memory and sat by the doorway. Here, while the light from the stars and moon was still cold and distant, it reminded him of the Shire. If he squinted enough, the orange, glowing fires of the Men of Dale and the Wood-elves almost appeared like the hearths of Hobbit homes. He could almost trick himself into believing he was back in the Shire, in Bag End.

__

Like the weight of the world had never weighed and broken his shoulders.

__

Like his heart had never been so full and so horrendously ripped out. Like he wasn’t haunted by the harp and the light of the campfire at night. Like he hadn’t lost his friends.  


Like he hadn’t lost his _friend _.__

_____ _

He pulled Sting from its belt. Its polished, silvery metal glimmered. Dark under eyes and a bruised face blankly stared back at him.

_____ _

He couldn’t recognise it.

_____ _

He was not the same Bilbo Baggins that left the Shire without packing handkerchiefs that late Spring morning.

_____ _

Or the Bilbo Baggins that had never held any blade larger than a bread knife; the Bilbo Baggins that had hoped but never seen any land outside the Shire – let alone east over the Misty Mountains; the Bilbo Baggins that had cherished his quiet, one person home.

_____ _

The Bilbo Baggins that needed no one.

_____ _

He stared at this new Bilbo Baggins in his letter opener's reflection. And it stared back. Blankly. Mutely.

_____ _

Dain – the new King Under the Mountain – had asked him if he were to travel home come Spring.

_____ _

The old Bilbo Baggins would have immediately said yes – let him flee these horrid halls of death and suffering and darkness.

_____ _

But now – now what was he to do?

_____ _

Were valleys of green grass and cheer any better? Would the smiles of Hobbits comfort him, or strike him as the smiles of the Company did? Would the flutes and cheerful dancing of the Shire bring on such fondness and despair as the harps of the Dwarf do?

_____ _

Would Bag End keep him as safe as a company of Dwarves and a Dwarven King did? Would it bring him the same happiness? The same sense of belonging?

_____ _

How could the emptiness of Bag End compare to the Dwarven, harp-playing King?

_____ _

Neither Bilbo or his unfamiliar reflection could answer.

_____ _

And he suspected neither could anyone else.

_____ _

For there was no home for him, anymore.

_____ _


End file.
